Saco City Council Meeting: Assessing Update, Connector Road, and Resignation - July 21, 2026
Saco City Council Meeting: Assessing Update, Connector Road, and Resignation - July 21, 2026
This meeting of the Saco City Council on July 21, 2026, began at 6:30 PM with two workshops. The first workshop provided a detailed statistical overview of the city's recent property reassessment, explaining the rationale, methodology, and impact on residents. The second workshop updated the council on the long-planned Smith-Stockman connector road project, presenting three options, including a no-build, drainage-only, and full build. The formal meeting included public comments, primarily from residents of Blue Haven Mobile Home Park advocating for a strong rent stabilization ordinance, the acceptance of Councilor Doyle's resignation, and the approval of several action items including a fee schedule correction and a Dyer Library funding request.
Workshop 1: Assessing Overview
- Assessor Sean McCarthy presented a comprehensive overview of the city's recent property reassessment. He explained that a property-by-property inspection (measure and list) was completed over 18 months to build a solid data foundation.
- Key statistics: The assessment ratio was improved from 77% to 91% of market value. The quality rating (a measure of how close individual sales are to the average ratio) improved from 14+ to 5.6.
- McCarthy detailed the mass appraisal methodology: analyzing sales ratios, updating building costs based on industry standards (Marshall & Swift), and adjusting land values to reflect neighborhood desirability. He stated the market is appreciating at 5-8% per year.
- He explained that staying at a lower ratio (e.g., 77%) would cost the city an estimated $277,000 in lost state reimbursement for exemptions and $145,000 in lost personal property revenue.
- McCarthy said 38 in-person meetings had been held, 124 more were scheduled, and 235 phone calls had been taken from taxpayers.
- He stated the goal is to make smaller, more frequent updates in the future to avoid large shocks.
- Councilors and the City Administrator confirmed that the mill rate is expected to drop due to increased valuations, with a commitment (setting the rate) planned for early August.
- Councilors Hewitt, Edwards, Arnman, Gale, and Johnson asked questions about the timing of tax bills (due October 14th), the planned frequency of updates, the quality rating metric, and the potential impact of new housing stock on values.
Workshop 2: Smith-Stockman Connector Road Update
- Director Travis Moore and City Engineer Adam Bliss presented an update on the long-planned Smith-Stockman connector road, a goal dating back to a 2004 study. The project aims to create a back connection for parcels on the east side of Route 1, improving traffic flow and safety.
- Three options were outlined: No-build ($0 cost), Drainage-only ($600,000), and Full build including the connector road, drainage pond, and sidewalk extension ($1.1 million).
- The full build includes a stormwater pond for water quality and quantity management, but would require removing mature trees, reducing buffering for neighboring properties.
- Easements are needed from three landowners: The Ledges (one already in place), Starbucks (positive communication), and IHOP (not yet engaged).
- Councilors expressed support for the project, noting it has been studied for years and would address long-standing traffic and pedestrian issues on Route 1. Concerns were raised about potential cut-through traffic in adjacent neighborhoods.
- The council agreed the item will return as a formal new business item for a future vote.
Public Comments & Testimony
- Sarah Giles Gardner (Blue Haven Resident Committee): Thanked Councilor Doyle, requested specific amendments to the proposed rent stabilization ordinance for mobile home parks, including lowering the vacancy increase from 15%, removing debt service from rent calculations, extending notice periods, and capping rent increases at CPI or 5%.
- Barb Thomas (Blue Haven Resident Cooperative): Stressed the importance of the rent stabilization ordinance as a backup plan, urged the council to treat resident input as critical data, and requested council members meet with the community.
- Kathy Dobbins (Blue Haven): Advocated for a strong rent stabilization ordinance to protect residents from out-of-state corporate owners, warning that current language leaves residents vulnerable to aggressive rent increases after an ownership change.
- Brian LaRoche (Blue Haven): Read a letter of gratitude for Councilor Doyle's service and advocacy for the park, and volunteered to serve on a committee working on the ordinance.
- Lisa DeRoscher (18 Pinehaven): Emphasized the need for the rent stabilization ordinance to prevent trauma from unjustified rent increases, noting lot rent has doubled.
- Zach Ashley (Thorian Avenue): Expressed concern over property tax increases (estimated $1,000 for his street), noting the new valuations were based on letters, not personal inspections, and could burden working-class neighbors.
- Sandra Gay (52 Comerlin Ave): Supported the Smith-Stockman connector, noting it has been discussed since 2004 and would address traffic issues, but acknowledged the neighborhood already has cut-through traffic.
- Joe Gunn (22 Boynton Brook Road, former councilor): Thanked Councilor Doyle for returning to serve during a critical time, highlighted his role in advancing the Camp Ellis jetty project, and encouraged residents to step up for the Ward 3 vacancy.
- Richard Garslin (Blue Haven): Highlighted a scheduled rent increase to $660/month by December 2027, stating many residents are on fixed incomes, and asked the council to support a 5% cap on annual rent increases.
- Pamela Sears (8 Settlers Way): Asked the council to consider the drainage-only option for the connector project, citing significant runoff and erosion from commercial properties affecting her property.
Consent Calendar
- Approved the minutes of the July 6, 2026 meeting. (Passed 6-0)
- Approved two consent items: (A) Annual report filing extension, and (B) Confirmation of the Mayor's appointment of Johanna Josephin to the Shoreline Commission. (Passed 6-0)
Action Items
- Acceptance of Councilor Doyle's Resignation: The council accepted the resignation of Councilor William Doyle, effective immediately, with several members thanking him for his service. (Passed 6-0)
- Fee Schedule Clarification: Approved a correction to the fee schedule to reflect a $90 per hour rate for outside police assignments with a cruiser, correcting an inadvertent $80/hour rate. (Passed 6-0)
- Public Hearing: Ambulance Service Ordinance Amendment: Opened and closed a public hearing on a proposed amendment to Chapter 60 to create annual educational and equipment reserve funds from the ambulance fund. A final reading is scheduled for August 3, 2026. (Passed 6-0)
- Public Hearing: Golden Rooster Special Entertainment Permit Renewal: Opened and closed a public hearing and approved the renewal of the special entertainment permit for the Golden Rooster Restaurant, concurrent with its liquor license. (Passed 6-0)
- Dyer Library Funding Request (First Reading): Approved the first reading of a request from Dyer Library for $75,000 from funds allocated in the FY2026 budget for a Youth Services expansion. The library director presented the plan, which adds 650 square feet from an adjacent meeting room. The final reading is scheduled for August 3, 2026. (Passed 6-0)
New Business
- Ward 3 Council Vacancy: The City Administrator announced a public call for letters of interest for the Ward 3 seat, with a deadline of August 12, 2026. A special election will be held on November 3, 2026, to fill the remainder of the term.
- Proposed Charter Amendments: The council discussed proposed charter amendments submitted by former Councilor Doyle and Councilor Johnson. First reading is expected on August 3, with a public vote in November.
- Dyer Library MOU: A draft Memorandum of Understanding was presented to codify the relationship between the city and the library regarding in-kind services. Councilor Johnson raised the possibility of granting the city's liaison voting rights on the library board.
Meeting Transcript
Good evening, everyone, and welcome to the Sauco City Council meeting for Monday, July twentieth at six thirty PM. Before we call the official meeting to order, we do have two workshop items that we will be addressing first. The first item is an assessing overview, and with us we have Assessor Sean McCarthy. We're just here to give you uh an update on what's been happening in the assessing department and the values citywide. Um, what were the results of the vision measure and list that we completed about six months ago? Um how do we update the values? Why did we update the values and what does that mean for the future? Those are the big topics. And for the measure and list, we basically up here. Um for the measure and list, um the purpose of that was to go property to property and make sure that we had good data for each parcel. Um when people were home, they were able to talk to them when they were allowed in, they were able to go in and verify data that way. They took new photos of every property. When they weren't able to get in but felt like they needed to, they would send follow-up letters and go back. Um so having done this 18 month project gave us a good foundation to go ahead and um have solid a solid data foundation to start analyzing the sales and the market in SACO. Um that's what we've been doing. So a statistical update. Um there's a few pieces of information uh that I want to go over before we get into the the actual process, right? So a few terms. Sales ratio. What is a sales ratio? It's basically a measure of how close our assessments are to market rate, right? Usually expressed as a percentage. If you have a hundred thousand dollar property that sells for 80,000, or that we have assessed at 80,000, we would be at 80% of market value. Just simple math terms. Um it's a measure of accuracy. How accurate are we on our assessments? Um we use the average ratio across the city to uh determine the amount the state reimburses us for exemptions. If we fall too low, the state gives us less money and we have to factor homestead exemptions, veterans exemptions, a bunch of things across the city. So the state, the the law is 70% to 110% is the range you can be in and still be within compliance of the rules the state sets for us as assessors. If you drop below 91%, that's when the factoring of exemptions starts happening. There's also the quality rating. This is a measure of how far from the average ratio any given sale is. And in some neighborhoods, you'll have a lot of good data, some less so, right? So we start looking at it from all those different angles to try to find out where our weak points are. So we have like a test database. It's all of our data from the live database that I can go in and just start making changes and do crazy stuff, and it won't affect people's actual valuations that they pay their taxes on, right? So essentially we got those sales, we saw where we were at, I start making changes, we change something, look and see what it does to the data, analyze the results, and then repeat until we get to a place we're happy with, right? You may have noticed at no part in this, did I pull comps for a property? At no part in this, did I go in and drill down and start really analyzing the minute details of what makes this property unique? That is not what this is. That's not what the assessing department does. We do what's called mass appraisal, and this is how mass appraisal is performed. It is statistical analysis. When you're at the level, the size of the city of Sacco, you've got 400 sales in a year. We're not quibbling over a single sale necessarily. Now, there are cases where we might. We can get into that a little bit later. Now, this, the graph I'm sure you've seen on the screen, is a measure of all the ratios after I made the update of every single sale in our sample. And you'll notice the red line is the average. And it might be hard to see because it's a little small, but you'll notice at the left side of the graph, which is the oldest sales, it's about 95-ish, maybe a little higher.
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